Remodeling jobs that pay dividends

October 15, 2006|By David A. Keeps, Los Angeles Times

When Darryl Wilson says he knows "what makes a house work," he isn't just talking about floor plans and furniture placement. For years, this 49-year-old designer has defrayed the cost of renovating his residences by getting them paying gigs as locations for magazine fashion spreads and print ads.

"The houses that work are the ones with tons of glass and natural light, a simple white box with midcentury furniture," he says. "Photographers and their clients also love the sexy backdrop of a city view."

Three years ago, Wilson found a Beverly Hills makeover project that was all that -- with a fish-shaped swimming pool and a side of Hollywood history. This 6,000-square-foot ranch home was built in 1958 by Eddie and Toni Mannix, an MGM vice president and his wife, an adulterous duo portrayed by Bob Hoskins and Diane Lane in this year's Hollywoodland.

The property included an Asian-style cabana inspired by the film The Teahouse of the August Moon.

Any vestiges of a movie-colony mansion, however, had been made inferior with bad 1970s fixtures, ceramic-tile floors, wood ceilings and rock fireplaces, Wilson says. After renting the house once -- to a photographer for FHM magazine who shot Teri Hatcher straddling Wilson's washing machine -- Wilson re-imagined it as "the type of house stars would've lived in during the glamorous-and-groovy era when the Polo Lounge and Perino's were swinging."

Deco-inspired doors with $500 Lucite knobs, triple-bevel-edged marble countertops and other custom elements add up to Wilson's design vision: Rat Pack modern with a Parisian accent. It is, he says, a home that reflects the elegance of European hotels and the ease of Southern California living, an amalgamation of everything he has loved in old movies and his extensive travels.

"Darryl has taken one of the predominant decorating trends of the moment, Hollywood glamour, and given it his own flair for luxury," says Stefan Lawrence, owner of Twentieth, an L.A. gallery where Wilson frequently shops. "What makes him distinctive as a designer is his ability to recognize the potential of the architecture as it exists and then execute perfectly correct interiors from start to finish."

Wilson's instincts, much to his surprise, led him to a design scheme that was more about what a house could do for him than what he could do for a house. This time, the makeover was personal.

Searching for his muse

You might say that Wilson was to the manner born. His father, Marvin, was a real estate developer who built high-end tract homes in the San Fernando Valley and Pacific Palisades, and his uncle, Ron Wilson, was an interior designer with clients including Johnny Carson and Kenny Rogers. Wilson's next-door neighbors in Encino were the Jackson Five. His baby sitter? Cher.

As a teenager, Wilson opened Living Interiors, a group of plant shops housed in the lobbies of office towers built by his father. "I would put plants in offices and do landscaping, and people said I had an eye for it," he says.

The plant business was prosperous enough. At 19, Wilson bought his first house for $47,600 in probate. His $294 mortgage payment was about the same as the rent he was paying.

After his undergraduate years at University of Southern California, Wilson went to law school, figuring he would become an entertainment attorney. He worked for record labels in London and managed L.A.-based musicians, restoring houses for himself and his clients on the side. In 1991, he gave up the dream of a career in the entertainment world.

"You can't hide what's inside of you," Wilson says. "I realized just how much I loved design. I was trying to manage artists when I wanted to be one myself."

He found his medium in real estate. He had an ability to look through sloppy remodeling and outdated decor and see the bones of a house. He knew what to keep, what to replace and where to find vintage modern furnishings that have since become bestselling reissues at Modernica and Design Within Reach.

He designed Kelsey Grammer's Malibu compound and the New York offices of Interscope Records. His last house in the Hollywood Hills earned a minimum of $2,000 a day as a photo location.

"It was ideal for anyone who wanted to tap into that retro, pop-hipster look," says Toni Maier, president of On Location, one of the companies that has represented Wilson's homes.

"Everyone from Pierce Brosnan to DMX shot there," Wilson says. "Carmen Electra laid on my sofa naked with feathers glued to her. It was the sexiest house people had seen in years."

Wilson loved waking up in the morning to find equipment trucks and caterers arriving. "My master bedroom hanging off a hill 1,000 feet above the Sunset Strip was like being in a jet flying over the city," he says. "It was exhilarating, but it was never peaceful, even when there wasn't another soul sharing the space with me."